Fallback
by wanderingwidget
Summary: Wilson's forgotten how they ended up together in the first place, but now together seems to be their default state. R HouseWilson Wilsonfemales HouseStacy


**Title: **Fallback

**Author: **wanderingwidget

**Rating: R**

**Pairing: **House/Wilson; Wilson/females; House/Stacy

**Summary: **Wilson's forgotten how they ended up together in the first place, but now together seems to be their default state.

**Warnings: **I am the Patron-Saint of emotional baggage, and also cryptic/hidden/ninja-like meanings. Also possible OOC-ness, a close look at an unhealthy relationship, and mention of sex! Oh yeah, also, possible spoilers up through ep.207.

**Author's Notes: **Thanks to my loverly betafish dontkickmycane and comments from ducksinarow any mistakes that got past them are totally my fault etcetera blah blah. This is a ONESHOT and unrelated to any of my other fics, though I think if you turn your head and squint you can almost see some of them happening in the same universe. Comments are always appreciated, as is Constructive Criticism

He tells himself that he didn't notice the first time because the first time there was nothing there to notice. There had been no dramatic breakup, no throwing of his belongings out into the street. Greg hadn't sworn at him, or begged him to stay, or made some desperate attempt to make things work. He'd gone down on James one night and the next morning Greg was tossing dead Sharpies into the trash in between packing his life away into fifteen boxes (most of them full of books). He took their couch and the towels with him and sauntered out the door.

The first time hadn't even been for the first wife. It'd been for Charlotte. Charlotte Penn of the long legs and pixie nose and outfits that Greg accused her of ordering from Hooker's Weekly to her face one night over Chinese take out and a bad British movie that James couldn't remember. Charlotte had moved into the apartment he'd started renting with Greg, had slid into his space so easily that James could almost forgive himself for not noticing how easily Greg had slid out of it. Charlotte had lasted almost a year, ten months and eleven days and Greg could probably tell him exactly when he'd shown up on his doorstep with his duffle bag in one hand and his shredded heart in the other.

All he remembered was the look in Greg's eyes - that look that hadn't been surprise, or anger, or even lust - that look he'd never seen before. And he'd muttered something about Charlotte wanting to keep the apartment and could he maybe crash on the couch if it wasn't too much trouble and Greg had taken his bag and pulled him inside.

"Come to bed." He said.

He tells himself that he did notice the second time, but he's honest enough to admit that probably the only reason he'd noticed was because the second time it had been him moving out, not Greg. Sometimes he wonders if he would have noticed, if things had happened differently, if Lois - the first wife - hadn't insisted that they buy a house, "Because that's what married people do, James." Or if they hadn't been able to afford the one she'd wanted, a two-bedroom colonial with a tiny postage stamp yard and a 'quaint' kitchen that Greg had snorted at and called 'groovy.'

But things had happened the way they'd happened. He'd met Lois, fallen in love, and proposed, all without thinking too hard about it. Truthfully Greg hadn't entered his mind at all until he'd suddenly realized in the middle of WWF that he'd have to tell him he was getting married. His face had turned gray so fast that Greg had actually noticed, turning to him at the next commercial break and arching an eyebrow.

"I'm getting married." He said. His voice had been unnaturally calm, and he'd realized it was the same tone his mother had used when she'd told his father that she'd dumped all of the liquor down the sink. Stating the fact as if she were telling him it was tax season again. He didn't know what he'd expected. Anger, probably, betrayal, jealousy. Maybe he'd expected denial, maybe he'd expected Greg to try and talk him out of it.

Instead Greg had twisted the cap off of a new bottle of beer, tilted his head to the side, and smiled. "Congratulations." He said. Then he'd finished the beer in two long gulps and WWF was back on and it was time for the cage match.

James, struck by Greg's casual acceptance of his announcement, pressed on. "We're getting a house. A little place…" He'd trailed off when Greg waved a hand at him in annoyance.

"Celebrate later. Carnage now." He said, and he twisted the cap off of another bottle.

Lois had been leggy too, but had a roman profile and better taste in clothes. A week after his announcement Greg had looked her up and invited her to dinner while James was in the shower. They'd gone out to Cameron's for overpriced Italian food and Greg had not only worn a suit but managed not to get anything on it. Lois had been charmed by James' roommate, Greg had toasted their engagement, and James had gone home with Lois feeling like there were glass snakes crawling through his guts.

The night before the wedding Greg had taken him dancing. It'd felt like they'd hit every gay bar in Jersey and by the time they'd gotten back to Greg's apartment, because by then it was Greg's apartment, not their apartment, James had been drunk on panic and he couldn't remember what else. He wasn't sure if there had been anything else, or if the rest had just been Greg.

They'd fallen into bed laughing, James pulling at Greg's pants while Greg mapped the contour of his jaw. James had been desperate and Greg had been willing and they still fit together so well that James wondered how they could ever be apart. Later, with Greg's fingers running through his hair, Greg's hand smoothing down his side, he'd pushed himself away. The bedroom was dark, the only light coming from the dim green numbers of three twenty nine am, and Greg's eyes had watched him silently. Patiently.

"Why." James said.

"You should get some sleep. Lois'll kill me if you look like shit at the altar and I don't think even my magic coffee'll help if you don't get any sleep." Greg said. He pulled him back down, wrapped him up in his arms, and stayed silent for the rest of the night. James didn't remember falling asleep, but he remembered Greg waking him up with a plate of eggs and toast and a steaming cup of his 'magic coffee.'

The second time he didn't run back to Greg. He didn't think he had any right. Greg had been dating some blonde from Peds and he was almost certain that she'd been staying over nights. He hadn't expected to be forgiven twice. But he'd gotten drunk in his hotel room, tried to call him and then hung up on the third ring because it was five in the morning and his wife had just kicked him out and he didn't really want to be subjected to Greg telling him he was a worthless loser too. He really couldn't have taken that.

Greg had shown up an hour and a half later, pounding on his door and ordering James to open the fuck up and threatening to get the manager to open it if he wouldn't and damn it James stop being a fucking idiot.

He'd opened the door, because really there hadn't been any other choice, and Greg had stormed into the room, sneered at the empty bottles lined up on the table, and glared at him with such intensity that James had had to retreat to the bathroom. When he'd finally stumbled out he'd found Greg slouched on the bed flicking through the cable TV with a slightly glazed look in his eyes.

"You're an idiot." Greg said when James stood frozen in the bathroom doorway.

"I'm sorry."

Greg flicked to a different channel, one that painted his face in black and white. "You're always sorry."

"I know."

"Come to bed." He flicked the TV off and tossed the remote onto the nightstand. "You're gonna feel like hell when you wake up."

The third time it hadn't been him. Maybe that's why he'd noticed it so early. The third time he'd been sure he could make them work. He'd been sure that the alimony payment had worked it out of his system, whatever 'it' was. The third time he'd been sure. Apparently he'd waited too long to be sure though because - just as he was deciding to settle down - Greg was deciding to take actual notice of the rest of the human race.

Her name was Stacy, she'd worked for the Hospital's legal department, and James had been the one to introduce them.

The first words out of her mouth were "So you're the asshole who's been making my department rich."

"It's a fun job, why shouldn't I get to do it?" Greg said.

It wasn't love at first sight. It was lust at first sight. It was lust at first sight and James had noticed it before Greg, and had spent the rest of the decade kicking himself for it. Over and over and over again. It hadn't even been sexual lust, Greg had lusted after her mind the way most men went after a pair of double-D's. It'd made James sick to watch, and it hadn't taken Greg long to notice.

They went on their first official date the day after Greg moved into his new apartment. James went out, got drunk, and fell into bed with wife number two. Marriage number two ended the same time as Greg's relationship with Stacy, with the infarction, but just like Greg he held on. They both tried to make things work even though James didn't think that either of them really wanted them to. They went through the motions because they couldn't think of anything else to do.

He filed almost two years later, on the day Stacy told him she was moving out.

The day after her last box was shoved into the back of her Chevy he'd started moving himself back into Greg's apartment. It was the first time ever in their on again off again that he'd had to sleep on the couch. Because Greg couldn't stand to be touched, couldn't stand to roll over in bed and find him there and think - for just that split second - that he was Stacy. Because James wasn't masochistic enough to force the issue.

It had been hell, and if James could have done it all over again he didn't know if he'd do it all the same. Greg spent the first month actively ignoring him, the second month actively pissed off at him, and most of the third and fourth months drunk. By that time James had turned Stacy's old study into his bedroom, taught himself not to gasp and jump to his feet every time Greg winced or faltered on his feet, and was starting to relearn everything there was to know about Greg's quirks. There were more now, they were mostly unhealthy, and there was little he could do about them.

Greg stopped cooking after the infarction and James could only assume that he and Stacy ate take out in the interim because Stacey couldn't microwave a can of Chef-Boy-R-Die. James bought the Joy of Cooking, learned how to boil an egg, and moved his mom from six to three on speed dial because Greg wouldn't eat anything that was burnt, poorly seasoned, or otherwise substandard unless it came out of a cardboard box.

They had sex three times. The first two Greg was drunk and the last time James was fairly certain he was high. That was another thing that had changed: Greg stopped drinking beer and started stocking vodka, rum, and anything else cheap and strong and guaranteed to leave him feeling miserable the next morning. Wilson found himself counting Greg's pills - almost religiously - every night while Greg was in the shower. He didn't stop, not even after Greg had caught him at it and yelled at him for over an hour.

The fourth time Greg kicked him out.

The apartment had been in his name and when the lease ran out he'd simply neglected to renew it. Greg informed him over pizza and a poorly dubbed kung fu movie.

"You should talk to Jackie about shacking up." He said, then took a giant bite of his pizza and waggled his eyebrows.

James flushed and stared at his shoes and felt an instant wave of guilt, and then a wave of anger at feeling guilt. It wasn't like he and Greg were really together. For once he hadn't cheated. There hadn't been anything to cheat on. "Her name's not Jackie." He said.

"Jackie, Jessica, Jubilee, Jane, whatever." Greg waved his pizza dismissively before devouring what was left of it.

He'd offered to help Greg find a new apartment, but Greg had already put a down payment on one. He'd offered to help Greg move, but Greg had already hired a moving company and scheduled them for the next week. James had been surprised that Greg hadn't already phoned Julie and told her to start looking for a bigger place.

James proposed to Julie because he hadn't known what else to do. Julie accepted because she'd been in love, and she'd been more practical than most women her age. Greg had already called James' lawyer and told her to put together a prenup. James told her to shred it and then drove to Greg's new apartment to scream at him to butt out of his personal life and mind his own business.

Greg blinked at him. "Your personal life is my business." He said.

James replied by getting drunk and driving back to Julie's to get laid.

Now James was sleeping on the couch in his office, or trying and failing to sleep, and cursing himself for being a romantic idiot. At least Julie wasn't like his first two wives, she didn't seem hell bent on taking him for everything he had. Instead she seemed hell bent on splitting everything down the middle. The fact that he made three times as much as her should have made him bitter, but it didn't. It just made him tired.

Greg pushed the door open without knocking, stood there and leaned against his cane, and stared down at James with something half-familiar and half-alien in his eyes. "This is better than getting drunk on cheap booze in a cheaper hotel." He said. "But not by much."

James dropped his arm over his eyes and told himself that he wasn't going to hope. "Well, I've been trying to decide if I wanted you to hook me up with your dealer. You know, skip the maudlin drunk scene and go straight for the hard core drug addiction." He waited, expecting some flashy come back, some brush off, some witty turn of phrase.

Greg shifted, leaned heavier on his cane. "James. Come home." He said.

He couldn't help himself, James moved his arm and stared at him. Greg looked at the shelves behind his desk, his eyes moved slowly, as if he were actually reading each title. A thousand responses were available, from 'What, isn't tonight hooker night?" to "Why?" to "What if I fuck up again?" He remembered the first time, the way it'd felt to have his heart torn out, how good it'd felt when Greg had pulled him into bed.

Greg looked down at the carpet, tapped his cane to a song only he could hear. "Come home." He said again, and James thought he recognized the sound of a shredded heart being yanked out and put on display.

There was no guarantee that this time would work any better than the last times, but there was a chance that it would. And maybe James was deluding himself when he pushed up to stand in front of Greg, and maybe Greg was deluding himself with the hastily concealed edge of hope in his eyes. Maybe it happened because they were both too tired to keep fighting it.

He reached out, cupped Greg's bruised jaw and wondered if what they felt was really love, or just the absence of any other options. "Let me grab my bag." James said.

Greg nodded.

"And there's no way in hell that I'm getting on that death machine with you."

"You know you're just jealous." Greg said.

James snorted. "Yes, I'm insanely jealous of your suicidal streak."

"Not suicidal." Greg muttered as James locked up.

James just shook his head. "Please tell me you're not ordering Chinese, I don't think I can take another carton of MSG."

"I can tell them not to use it." Greg said.

"And then they'll add twice as much."

Greg snorted. "Fine, how about spaghetti and meatballs?" He arched an eyebrow when James stopped for a split second, eyes widened in surprise. "What, you trust the delivery guy not to spit in the Hot and Sour soup but you don't trust me to fry a meatball? What's the world coming to."

James shook his head and watched with a smile as Greg pounded on the elevator call button.

END


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